Various concepts used in the travel industry are herewith discussed as an aid in understanding the technical basis of the invention.
Passenger Name Record (PNR): A PNR is a record in the database of a computer reservation system that contains the itinerary for a passenger or a group of passengers.
Passenger Name Record (PNR) Product: In the following description every value-based element in the PNR is referred to as a PNR product. This includes, for example, AIR segments, a special service request (SSR) chargeable, airline services and ticketing fees (TSM), hotel and car reservations.
Electronic Document: Electronic documents (e-documents) are said to be associated to products when paid by the passenger. Depending on the type of the product an e-document can be an electronic ticket (an E-Ticket for AIR segments) or an EMCO (for SSR chargeable and TSM).
Electronic Ticket (E-Ticket): An E-Ticket is a document issued by the airline or travel agent once the passenger confirms and pays for the reservation. The E-Ticket is created based on the information of the reservation, such as the flight details (class, date, boarding point, etc), the passenger name, form of payment, etc. Upon the issuance of the E-Ticket every flight segment in the reservation is said to be associated to an E-Ticket coupon. Reference in this regard can be made to the non-limiting example shown in FIG. 1A.
Once issued the E-Ticket is stored in a separate database (different from the reservation database that stores the PNR) and is controlled by a separate system, the ETS (Electronic Ticketing Server). Only the number of the E-Ticket appears on the reservation image. As a result, and if the agent needs the details of the E-Ticket, the details can be retrieved from the ETS. This is a done through a query appropriately called an “E-Ticket display request”.
E-Ticket and Reservation de-synchronization: However, once the E-ticket is created any change made to the flight details of the reservation will not be reflected directly on the E-Ticket as there is currently no automatic process to accomplish this task. The agent thus is required to update manually the E-Ticket with the latest changes, otherwise the document and the reservation will be de-synchronized, and the segment and its corresponding coupon become an “orphan”, i.e., not associated with a coupon. Reference in this regard can be made to the example shown in FIG. 1B.
A de-synchronization can result, for example, due to the following sequence of actions. A passenger books an airline flight in economy class, and then subsequently rebooks in first class. When the rebooking is completed the associated PNR is modified, however the E-ticket or coupon may be not modified. The passenger could possibly, in this circumstance, be able to fly in first class while the airline does not collect the fee for the class upgrade. In order to have the class upgrade paid, the agent may ask for a re-book in order to modify the image of the PNR. He may also reissue the E-ticket which will trigger a re-pricing operation. However, such actions may not always be done by travel agents.
Orphan Product: A product is considered as an orphan when it is not associated with any Electronic Document. For an AIR segment product this can occur when an agent rebooks the segment without updating the corresponding E-Ticket (thus generating a de-synchronization). On the other hand, the SSR chargeable and fees-related products are orphan as long as the fees/penalties are not paid by the passenger. In fact, paying the fees creates and associates the Electronic Document to the corresponding product.
DCS Window: This is the time when a Departure Control System (DCS) needs to have all of the passengers and ticket information linked to a particular flight. This information is used to perform passenger check-in and the boarding of passengers onto the plane.
PNL: The Passenger Name List (PNL) is a file that contains all passenger data related to a flight. The PNL is sent to the DCS.
An important objective of airlines is to reduce cost and maximize benefits for air carriers and other entities that employ electronic ticketing and travel reservation services. This objective is at least partly achieved by striving to attain the following goals:
(1) 100% Electronic Ticketing, as the distribution of paper tickets is many times more costly.
(2) 100% Integrity on Revenues, i.e., no misusage of fare rules by passengers and no loss of information during disruptions.
(3) 100% Self-Service Check-in, i.e., minimize the number of agents at the airport in order to further reduce operational costs.
Related to the foregoing is a goal that all passengers be travel-ready at check-in time. However, with the generalization of electronic ticketing the lack of an automatic synchronization technique between the E-Ticket and the passenger's itinerary is becoming an increasingly important issue for airlines, one that can prevent the achievement of objectives 2 and 3. The occurrence of a de-synchronization event requires manual effort at check-in and can result in an under-collection of the associated fee.